1,302 Words 3 Words/Second Average 7 minutes, 14 seconds Total Read Time Christ, nobody is going to read this thing. I was debating on doing the super-edgy intro along the lines of "hi im new whats a ttt and how do i make a thread?", but I'd rather not waste it. I actually had an intro thread from when I registered an account, but it was deleted somewhere along the line; no clue why. It only had one reply anyways, @The Seventh. No, I figured I'd make a real one. Tell people who don't know me who I am, and recount these events for those that do. Hello everyone! I am an Ex-Administrator and mapper here at STTT. I first joined with the username Pages --or Super Pages, when suiting the SuperMan Model-- and 'upgraded' to the name Books once I became a Moderator. Once promoted to Administrator, I gained the name Kindle, and then eventually changed my username to Yawn because I'm an asshole who likes to make people yawn. Yawn. You're probably going to yawn just by yawn reading yawn this, yawn. Approximately eleven months --a year from now, a month after this was posted. Yay basic math.-- ago, I had just finished a job as an Xbox One Representative for Microsoft. The sales season was over, and I was left searching for something to pour my free-time into. I joined an STTT by random chance, having had a random yet sudden drive for TTT. Quickly, I began to love it. The people, the gameplay, everything. Found myself coming back, day after day. With ten years of level design experience in the Source engine, and a desire to create for the community; I was more than happily coined The Mapper. Except my want to Moderate/Administrate, would cause future issues down the road. Nonetheless I applied, and was accepted by a @Sir Lemoncakes. Despite making friends with most of the staff members, I had barely played a couple games with him let alone actually knew who he was. With that said, I was entirely surprised yet more than grateful. It was at this time we first launched Vanilla, and it was as busy and chaotic as ever. Sir Lemoncakes gave me Moderator privileges, and left the server. No other staff members, no other anything. It was sank or swim, and I swam. Having not even known how to open RDM Manager --though keeping in mind, I used to Admin in TTT days before those tools existed--, I made it through the night sweating and exhausted. Over time I had become known for voicing my strong opinions, regardless of authority. Shutting down countless Moderator Applications, with these seven-twelve paragraph posts with stacked evidence against the person. (The staff called them novels, which wasn't really that much of a pun about my name. They were just that long.) It was an odd thrill, especially as everyone poured in to see my latest works. ...But let's just phrase that because of it, enemies were made and they weren't all non-staff members. Despite this, I made sure that every post I made was the highest of quality. Every thread had a custom header-banner, and my wording was as precise as humanly possible to convey the message I wanted to send. You can ask @Cee, sometimes I would spend four hours on just a single post; just to make it perfect. Perhaps I care too much what people think, but I don't care. The following weeks-months, were glorious. The Golden Age, in my time here at STTT. Everything was perfect. Us staff members were so close, daily-night Skype calls where countless fun and malpractices ensued. Dead cats too. I would work on map fixes on one computer, while simultaneously Moderating and sharing countless laughs on the other. Eventually I realized how my countless long nightly hours caught up with me, once I had joined an unstaffed Vanilla on the last round before a map change; and completed seventeen untouched reports long before it was over. Eventually I was promoted to Administrator by @Event Horizon, and I was weak-knee'd with how vastly different it was. My downfall came with people expecting action to be taken, where there was none. Not as far as reports, but just as an Administrator as a whole. To no fault of their own, I had done this my entire career as Moderator too. Somehow expecting more out of Administrator's besides 'Team Meetings' and 'Global Bans', just because they're Administrator's. It's very very easy to say "X Administrator never does anything..", but there really isn't that much more to do. Which is why we are a bit too hard on our Administrator's, or at least I was at times. Oh, I also threatened to quit far too much during the "Anti-Skype Campaign". Far far too much. This discouraged me, and with that I began slowly and unknowingly slotting my time in other interests. Doing other stuff, playing other games, whilst my hours began to drop and drop. I'm not going to use the family vacation I had in the middle of that time period as an excuse, it was my own doing as far as hours. Highwon and his Leads (@Event Horizon and @Slicck) swiftly took notice of this, and we had a not-so-nice group meeting where I honestly was more malevolent than I should've been. Not that it was an all-around heartwarming discussion, but I have to say I went overboard. They wanted me to become a Developer -which at the time, had the privileges of a VIP- and I honestly didn't want to lose everything just to work on maps that I had been anyways. After more fighting, I vaguely promised to improve and sent myself on my way. Except less than a few days later, I found out that my previous community (Infusion Gaming) since 2012 was starting up again. I swiftly PM'd my Lead Administrator about this, taking the next few days off on a quick-vacation to get my fix and see how everything went during the launch. Everything was grand, until my Lead Administrator decided to bring up a vague vacation while I was playing on IG's server. Before the conversation was even over, I was demoted to VIP and various others reported that I would also be "Discouraged" on the forums. Feeling more than betrayed by my 'friends' manipulation, and the grief in loss of a community I dedicatedly spent countless hours-months into. Bitter months followed. I disappeared for months, only resurfacing now and again to simply see how everything/everyone was-is. Everything taken in a single night, and that was that. Currently I am working on one last present, for this lovely community. However after that, I think my time is cut short outside of the occasional play session. Whilst the last thing I want to do is move to another community, Highwon will no longer speak to me outside of third-party verbatim's; and my wings have been clipped. Nonetheless, it's been fun everyone. You can see a "little" wall-of-memories post I made by clicking here.
That was quite the read Kindle; and I am more than interested to see what your "One Last Present" may be for this community. Nonetheless, its nice to see you around for the time being, or however long you wish to stay.
I knew pretty quickly that you would be great in this little STTT world. Thank you writing this and hope to see you from time to time.
Welcome back, man! I hope we can look at our past and move on to settle our differences. I have never had anything personal against you.
Um.... Hi..... I think we know each other... Jokes aside, I'm glad to see you have one final project for us.
I never thought being a moderator would be so much fun. Those were the days, haha. Welcome back, buddy.
